


Solitary Type

by PontiusHermes



Category: The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Angst, Gen, Longing, Memories, Mortality, Sad, Short, Vampires, non-romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14903822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PontiusHermes/pseuds/PontiusHermes
Summary: Silas wishes he could go with the Lady...





	Solitary Type

She was there. He could tell. She didn't come often, nor did she come for long, but he could always tell when she came to the graveyard. Like eddied leaves, the Dead stirred at her presence, and Silas, in his belfry knew. He would slip down, through the chapel, through trees and overgrown shrubs, to a shadow from which he could watch. He always felt strangely hollow when he saw them, the Lady and her Grey.

She was giving her counsel, the few wise words that never failed to resolve whatever important issue the Dead had been debating, while the Grey stood patiently by. It turned a large, gentle eye to look at Silas, who looked calmly back. No-one else seemed to have noticed him.

He had tried to touch the Grey once, when he was only beginning to understand what it meant to dwell between the Before and After. The Lady had been not far away, but engaged with some who had taken their Ride; not looking. He had stepped out of the shadows towards the horse, who had regarded him with a calm, wise eye. He had longed to touch it, to know he _could_ touch it. He had closed his eyes, reaching, feeling through emptiness for a means to touch. He had kept reaching, waiting, feeling nothing. When at last he had opened his eyes, both Lady and Grey were gone; they had, like Silas himself, their silent ways of coming and going. He had stood there like an effigy until just before sunrise, contemplated staying after sunrise, and finally swirled away.

The Lady was leaving. As the dead bobbed their various old-fashioned demonstrations of respect, she turned to remount her Grey, and her eyes met Silas'. Both stopped for a heartbeat, though neither measured time that way, not anymore, and then Silas reached a pale hand towards her, his inscrutable face somehow wistful. He could not have touched her from that distance; the gesture was an offer, a plea. She smiled the small, sad smile of a faithfully married wife who sees an old love she never touched and knows she never will touch, remounted her Grey, and cantered off into the distant sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :)
> 
> Pontius


End file.
